Britain's greatest living artist to be preserved in formaldehyde

The man recently named as Britain's greatest living artist may be preserved in formaldehyde if the man regarded as Britain's greatest living conceptual artist gets his way.

David Hockney (74), who has rebuffed suggestions that he is the country's greatest living artist, and who is preparing a major exhibition at the Royal Academy of his landscapes of East Yorkshire, recently denied criticising fellow artist Damien Hirst for using assistants to create his works.

Meanwhile, Hirst is believed to have a plan, currently at the concept stage, of preserving Hockney in formaldehyde, or exhibiting the Yorkshireman's severed head in a box of breeding maggots and ravenous bluebottles.

'It would be an amusing way of bringing together British figurative and conceptual art,' commented art collector Charles Saatchi, 'but, alas, I suppose we may have to wait until David passes on.'